a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly satisfied.  And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made things as soft as he could for me. And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he _could_ help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up. Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and _Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself: “Look at that, now!  I might have expected it, letting him go off that way without anybody to watch him.  So now I got to go and trapse all the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creetur's up to _this_ time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it.” “Why, I never heard nothing from you,” says Aunt Sally. “Well, I wonder!  Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here.” “Well, I never got 'em, Sis.” Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says: “You, Tom!” “Well--_what_?” he says, kind of pettish. “Don't you what _me_, you impudent thing--hand out them letters.” “What letters?” “_Them_ letters.  I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll--” “They're in the trunk.  There, now.  And they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office.  I hain't looked into them, I hain't touched them.  But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you warn't in no hurry, I'd--” “Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it.  And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he--” “No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but _it's_ all right, I've got that one.” I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just as safe to not to.  So I never said nothing. CHAPTER